Techno Sapiens… Eng / Under Swe

Techno Sapiens …

The Techno Sapiens Are ComingWhen God formed man and woman he called his Creation very well.Transhumanists say that by manipulating our bodies with microscopic tools, we can do better.Are we ready for the big debate?By C. Christopher Hook

E radicate cancer.Retain and recall everything you can find on the Internet.Give your child a high IQ.Drastically reduce the number of deaths in the U.S. soldiers involved in wars.Gives sight to the blind.* Soon you Int to be God to fulfill this wish list.But you may not be human either.* This is a promise and dangers of nanotechnology.First defined by the engineer and scientist K. Eric Drexler in the 80′s and 90′s, uses nanotechnology tools that work on “nano” scale.A nanometer is one billionth of a meter in length.The DNA molecule is 2.3 nanometers wide.* Nanotechnology, then, involves the manipulation of matter at the atomic and molecular level.* While an average Layman may have seen some pictures of this technology, what few know its current applications and future.Fewer than can wrap their thoughts on nanotechnology ethical implications.

Nanotechnology is developing in two ways.The “top down” approach creates microscopic machines or means of delivery.The “bottom up” approach harnesses the biological world.For example, the ribosome, which exists in each cell is an amazing nanoscale factory that takes RNA, a long beach translate genetic information, and converts it into a protein that then can serve as an enzyme.The BADA fallen makes nanotechnology possible stuff wonders.

Oncologists use a biological Nano Machine antibodies attached to ball-shaped molecules to deliver radiation drug Zevalin to the cells that are particularly affected by lymphoma, saving healthy tissue from exposure to radiation.

In my practice as a hematologist, may I take soon with bioengineered blood cells.They can serve as an alternative blood to carry oxygen, and help us avoid many risks and liabilities of blood transfusions.

Other future applications include devices that would: (1) develop and implement new tissue to heal arthritic joints and torn ligaments, (2) Los plaque in heart and brain blood vessels, (3) manufacture and deliver certain medicines in the body, such as insulin; and (4) replace or repair damaged brain cells in people with diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

When you combine nanotechnology with cyborg technology (interface lever neural tissue with electronic devices), The result is amazing.Researchers in Georgia is to help people affected by a terrible disease called locked syndrome.Its sufferers appear to be in a coma, but I actually quite aware of their surroundings.Through electrodes implanted near the motor regions I, these patients’ brains, they have learned to steer the cursor on a computer screen of their thoughts.This means that they essentially type with their thoughts, and can therefore Because Communicate with others.

It is not difficult to imagine that such tools will continue treatment in the augmentation, or enhancement of “normal” individuals, or what is Known more objective “Bioengineering.”

Direct neural interfacing with computer systems would be attractive for people to have that need access to lots of information.Centers such as MIT, Stanford and the University of Toronto have programs to develop “Laptops” Devices that seamlessly become a part of our day to day wear, but still allow 24 / 7 connection to the Internet and other computer databases.The interface uses optical projectors I Specially designed goggles, and a small handheld module.Hitachi and Charmed Technologies is already selling such devices.We are extremely close to taking the final step towards “seamless” interface, brain implants By directly.

Astronomer and physicist Robert Jastrow, for example, imagine this in his book 1983 The Enchanted Loom: “A Bold researchers will be able to point to the contents of his mind and transfer them to the metallic lattice of a computer. …It can sagas to this scientist has entered the computer and now lives in it.At last, the human brain, embedded in a computer, has been released from weak mortal flesh ….It is in control of their own destiny … housed in indestructible lattices of silicone, and no longer restricted in their many years … such a life could live forever.“Well, at least until it can deliver the necessary batteries or power.

Many scientists expect cyborg and nanotech enhancements as a means to prevent aging, or even achieve immortality.The possibilities hear most of the science fiction right now, but they seem less and less unlikely as the years go by.

Join the Dinosaurs!

The ethical implications of nanotechnology is Great men Even more worrying is the philosophy of some of its proponents, who subscribe to transhumanism.This is the belief that one day we will transform our nature I such an extent that a record of human art, or several new species, will be created as “superior” to homo sapiens.

The fact that we are biological creatures is simply our current status, transhumanists believe, but it is not necessary to define who we are or what we should be.Bart Kosko, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California, puts it more bluntly in his book Heaven in a Chip (2002): “Biology is not destiny.It was never more than a trend.It was just nature’s first quick and dirty Ways to Compute the meat.Chips fate.“

British roboticist Kevin Warwick put it this way: “I was born human.But it was an accident of fate-a condition merely of time and place. “This sounds startingly reminiscent of what nihilist Frederick Nietzsche wrote in Thus Spoke Zarathustra:” I will teach you OVERMAN.They are overcome something that has to. “

Transhumanism is in some ways a new incarnation of Gnosticism.It sees the body as simply the first prosthesis we all learn to manipulate.As Christians, we have long rejected the gnostic claims that the human body is evil.Embodiment is fundamental to our identity, designed by God and sanctified by the Incarnation and bodily resurrection of our Lord.Unlike gnostics, transhumanists reject the idea of ​​the soul and replace the idea of ​​laying down a pattern.

Katherine Hayles, professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles, I say How we became Post Human (1999) that “I posthuman Finns Some essential differences or absolute demarcations, between bodily existence and computer simulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological organism, robot technology and human goals.“She ends her book with a warning:” People can either go gently into that good night, to link dinosaurs as a species that once ruled the earth, but now obsolete, or hang on a while longer by becoming machines themselves.in BADA fallen … How old people are coming to an end.“

These ideas are reflections of a small band of harmless techno geeks?Unfortunately not.Two summers ago, the National Science Foundation, published the National Science and Technology Council, and Department of Commerce, the proceedings of a December 2001 conference on “converging technologies for Improving Human Performance.” This seminal document is a manifesto for government sponsorship of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science / cybernetics to improve the human.

The report acknowledges occasionally there may be ethical and social considerations in implementing these goals and technology, but nowhere does it specifically ask them.It assumes that ethicists, when they participate at all, will simply give practical reasons for the plan, rather an ATT actually raise substantive questions about the underlying philosophy behind the program.December 2, 2003 President Bush signed into law the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act.The bill, as nano-news site reported GER nanotechnology processes “a permanent home in the federal government” and to share nearly $ 3.7 billion over four years for nanotechnology research and development programs.

My hope is that those involved in this research will listen to the wisdom of the report of the President’s Council on Bioethics released last October, which Granskär the ethical and social importance of using biotechnology for purposes “beyond therapy.” It is a statement Suitable skeptical transhumanist and scientific utopia.“By wanting to be more than us, and sometimes act as if we were already superhuman or divine, we risk despising what we are and neglect what we have” The Council exhorts.“The Wanting To improve our bodies and our minds with the help of new tools to improve their performance, we risk making our bodies and minds a little different than our tools in the process also jeopardize distinctly human character our operations and offices.When searching for these means to be better than what we are or that we ourselves better than we do, we risk turning into some other “puzzling identity we have been through natural gift cultivated experiences really lived, alone and with others.When you are looking for brighter prospects, reliable contentment and reliable sense of self esteem on a bypass way as their common natural resources, we risk flattening our souls, lowering our ambitions, and diminishes our love and attachment.( Read the full report ).

We’re all enhanced

But is there really anything wrong with that attribute Improve our?Each of us engaged in a variety of previous reinforcement.We go to school.We train to improve our stamina and agility.We take vitamins.We use corrective lenses, false teeth and hearing aids.

True.But none of these items and activities aimed at bridging our art “normal capacity.They accepted, since they only Optimize Performance Within the natural limitations homo sapiens.

How about calculators and computers?They are expanding our ability to collect, store, retrieve, and process large amounts of information, more than our brains could ever have.Men to have access to technology that is separate from ourselves and we can turn a completely different permanent implant, or structural or genetic changes that may be passed on to future generations.

There are several key issues in our churches and theologians have to solve.Is it appropriate for members of the Body of Christ to Engage in changes that go beyond therapy and is irreversible?Is it just to do so in a world already deeply marked by injustice?What does it mean that our Lord healed and restored to his ministry-never improved?Is it important that the gifts of the Holy Spirit-wisdom, love, patience, kindness, manufactured Int Allows the technology?How would the transition from homo sapiens to techno sapiens affect our identity as bearers of God’s image?If Christians would conclude that such improvements Int is appropriate for a market to get, should they object to the other?

If we do, we can expect severe rejection.Embryonic stem cell research and cloning exploit other helpless people, so that they become an ethical problem for many people.But improvement techniques can operate without a doubt beneficial, since they are only used by those who chose to use them.You can not deprive people of their right to “better” themselves, especially if it concerns only them, right?

The military feels a moral obligation to do what it takes to ensure that every soldier comes home lever and prosper.If it takes genetic, cybernetic, or nanotechnological modifications to do it, so be it.After all, how could we deny our soldiers the best chance to survive?

Market forces will probably drive people to undergo improvements to be competitive in the market.It’s already happening.Those with defective vision can not be a Navy Seal if they undergo an irreversible and still risky LASIK eye surgery.It’s just a matter of time before members of the armed forces will be required to undergo other earlier of Reinforcement.

Many things that are sold to the public in the name of compassion, men at what price?A quick look at the history of technology shows that for almost all the technical “fix” myriad other problems arise.Nuclear power is just one example.

Man’s life can be extended, but at what cost to social structures?What is the effect on employment and retirement?If we change our bodies with stronger components, is what cost to our humanity?While we may Int understand the value of our weaknesses, Paul says, even our imperfections give us opportunities ().

Nano-engineered cybernetic implants give us access to large amounts of information, but they will lead to greater wisdom or knowledge of the Lord?

Cyber ​​connections in the brain will be two-way communication.This means that the last bastion of privacy and our minds, may no longer be safe.Will such implanted mechanisms force us to be exposed to unwanted images and ideas?We can not even check spam in our current computer networks.Before Getting computer viruses that can be prepared to damage brain cells through cybernetic implants!

Remember Sin

Transhumanist philosophy claims that technology can fix the fundamental problems of humanity.As Christians we know that our elemental problems arise from the corruption of the human heart ().

Sin is real, observable, and unexplained by empirical tools.All technological innovations will not only fail to produce true happiness but also will damage themselves by sin.Tools offered to produce liberation will also be used to further tyranny.It has always been so.

But Christians should not become techno-dystopian, suspicious of all new technologies.Although the technology is not our salvation, nor is an intrinsic evil.Technology has improved our ability to visa compassion and to share the gospel.Christians need to be techno-realists who recognize the potential products of innovation, but realistic to anticipate and limit its potential damage.This requires a proper understanding of human nature and God’s ultimate plan for our art that only the Gospel can give.Christians must boldly take part in discussion on these issues, boats between themselves and the square.

The Government’s policy for dealing with the ethical and social implications of bioengineering are now not Finland.But this is not stopping researchers or government.In late October, was the Congress estimates that the government would need to spend about $ 4 billion for nanotechnology research over the next four years.

Woody Allen once quipped, “More than ever in history, mankind stands at a crossroads.A path leads to despair and total hopelessness, the other to total extinction.Let us hope that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. “

It is my prayer that Christ’s body, inspired by the Holy Spirit and the gospel’s perfect vision for human well-being, can help us avoid either path.Instead, I pray that we will be able to control our surrounding culture to a truly human future.

C. Christopher Hook is a hematologist, director of bioethics education for Mayo Graduate School of Medicine, and chairman of the Mayo Clinical Ethics Council.Hook Comments are only his own and do not necessarily represent the views of Mayo Clinic.

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The mind-altering mechanism is based on a subliminal carrier technology: the Silent Sound Spread Spectrum (SSSS), sometimes called “S-quad” or “Squad”. It was developed by Dr Oliver Lowery of Norcross, Georgia, and is described in US Patent #5,159,703, “Silent Subliminal Presentation System”, dated October 27, 1992. The abstract for the patent reads:

“A silent communications system in which nonaural carriers, in the very low or very high audio-frequency range or in the adjacent ultrasonic frequency spectrum are amplitude- or frequency-modulated with the desired intelligence and propagated acoustically or vibrationally, for inducement into the brain, typically through the use of loudspeakers, earphones, or piezoelectric transducers. The modulated carriers may be transmitted directly in real time or may be conveniently recorded and stored on mechanical, magnetic, or optical media for delayed or repeated transmission to the listener.”

According to literature by Silent Sounds, Inc., it is now possible, using supercomputers, to analyse human emotional EEG patterns and replicate them, then store these “emotion signature clusters” on another computer and, at will, “silently induce and change the emotional state in a human being”.

Silent Sounds, Inc. states that it is interested only in positive emotions, but the military is not so limited. That this is a US Department of Defense project is obvious.

Or perhaps extra copies of genes that code for certain neural receptor sites could be introduced in the brain, to improve learning skills; that has been done in mice, in the lab of Joe Z. Tsien, of Boston University. Electrical stimulation has been used with some success as an adjunct to standard rehabilitation techniques for stroke victims — could it improve cognitive functions in healthy individuals?

Book Review: Medical Enhancement and Posthumanity (The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology)
The notions of biomedical enhancement and our possible posthuman future are very much, so to speak, topics du jour in the bioethical literature. Over the past few years a number of books have appeared that address the ethical issues that surround our using medical technology not simply to treat disorders, but to increase our capacities beyond their normal range, perhaps even to the point where we no longer can be counted as human. These include landmark works by John Harris (Enhancing Evolution) and Michael Sandel (The Case Against Perfection), along with other excellent and thought-provoking works by the likes of Jürgen Habermas and Francis Fukuyama, as well as a first-rate edited collection (Human Enhancement) produced by Julian Savulescu and Nick Bostrom. (Metapsychology)

As intelligence or sensory “amplifiers”, the implantable chip will generate at least four benefits: 1) it will increase the dynamic range of senses, enabling, for example, seeing IR, UV, and chemical spectra; 2) it will enhance memory; 3) it will enable “cyberthink” — invisible communication with others when making decisions, and 4) it will enable consistent and constant access to information where and when it is needed. For many these enhancements will produce major improvements in the quality of life, or their survivability, or their performance in a job. The first prototype devices for these improvements in human functioning should be available in five years, with the military prototypes starting within ten years, and information workers using prototypes within fifteen years; general adoption will take roughly twenty to thirty years. The brain chip will probably function as a prosthetic cortical implant. The user’s visual cortex will receive stimulation from a computer based either on what a camera sees or based on an artificial “window” interface.

First, we have to remember that all sensory data we experience is converted into electrical signals that the brain can process. The brain does a very good job of this, and we in turn experience these inputs as subjective awareness (namely through consciousness and feelings of qualia); our perception of reality is therefore nothing more than the brain’s interpretation of incoming sensory information.

Now imagine that you could stop this sensory data at the conversion point and replace it with something else.